Demon in My Chariot
by Aquarius Galuxy
Summary: Life's not so normal in high school, when the guy who owns your ride happens to be an angel. Driving a heavenly Ferrari-chariot. [NejiTen]
1. Nothing in Common

_Hey all - I don't think you were expecting this. Neither was I. ;) But I found out that there was a prompt challenge thing on the_ Caesar's Palace _forum on FFN, and couldn't resist (love love prompt fiction so much). Credits for the angel/demon thing goes to_ white noise and brine _, who came up with "A for angels, D for demons" in relation to school grades. ;)_

 _Prompt: "_ two characters who don't have much in common besides their being friends"

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 1: Nothing in Common**

"Now look here, just because I flunked my math test doesn't mean you have any right to snicker at me like that!"

"First, I wasn't snickering, and second, I have every right to move my face however I deem fit to."

Tenten scowled at the student standing across from her in the wide brick hallway. Around them, the last of the stragglers were on their way out of the school - it was nearing evening-time, after all - and only a few bothered to turn back and glance at the commotion they were creating.

She made a face at the way the young man glanced mockingly at her, pale lilac eyes cool and aloof.

"Stupid, stuck-up ass-" she growled.

"All the same, I received an A on my test," Hyuuga Neji informed her. He glanced down his aquiline nose to meet her gaze. "That's miles ahead of the D you scored."

"A is for 'asshole'," she snapped, stepping over to him, hands on her hips. Right now, most of the teachers had gone, and few would step in if they happened to engage in a brawl.

He watched calmly as she drew close, so that only a few feet remained between them. His lack of a reaction gnawed on her nerves like it always did. _How could he remain so... stoic?_

When there were merely inches between them, Neji leaned in, and said quietly, so that no one around could hear them, "A for angels, Tenten, and D for demons."

That he dared to mention their true natures in a public place annoyed her more than anything else. She glowered at him so hard that her eyeballs were straining at their sockets.

"Shut up, Neji," she hissed, glancing around just in case. "You know not to-"

"Of course I know that," he replied coolly, a smirk tugging on his thin lips. "I am also a smartass."

"You got that damn straight," she muttered, turning and stalking off. It was getting late, and they needed to be out of here soon. "I don't even know why I'm friends with you."

Neji fell into step next to her. "Because I'm irresistible, charming, and you can't help but want to be in my immediate circle."

Tenten snorted as they passed under the concrete archway that served as the main entryway to the school. "Douche."

He coughed lightly. "You get the D-names, remember?"

"Figures." She rolled her eyes.

Hyuuga Neji was everything she was not - he was smart, popular, beautiful, and he had perfect manners and straight, long hair, silky as ebony thread. Of course, that could also be due to the fact that he was a damn freaking _angel_.

Tenten, herself, was messy and late to school during the instances she slept through their arranged meeting times, and she failed more subjects than passed them. (Not that demons needed to pass stupid tests, anyway.) She preferred to spend her time alone, or with her close friend, Lee, and her legendary bedhead could only be disguised by wrestling her hair into her usual twin buns.

"Do you need a ride home this evening?" Neji asked, breaking into her thoughts.

She blinked. Almost forgot to be annoyed at him. "Yes," she sniped, "If your arrogant highness would be so generous as to offer me a space in your heavenly chariot."

It wasn't as if she couldn't fly home herself, but traveling through mortal transport was so much less conspicuous in broad daylight.

Neji stifled a snort. "Don't get my dashboard dirty with your filthy feet again, damn wench."

"Oh, so I'm a wench now?" she demanded, propping her hands on her hips.

"At least I'm not saddled with helping you with your homework," he retorted. If he weren't so high-and-mighty, she thought, he would have rolled his eyes.

"Whatever," she told him. "It's not like a little dirt is so difficult to clean off, anyway."

* * *

 _A/N: I have no idea where this fic is going to go... That really depends on the prompts I receive. ;) Thank you, Zero!_

 _As far as possible, this will be a lighthearted, low-commitment series ;) Thoughts/comments/reviews are appreciated!_


	2. A Bad Date

_Wasn't planning on updating today, but I received my prompt. ;) Prompt is "Write about a bad date" (Thank you Zero!). This occurs in the same universe as Part 1._

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 2: A Bad Date**

The place smelled greasy, like frozen food deep-fried in stale vegetable oil.

"I don't see why we both have to be here," Tenten groused, chomping fervently into an oil-soaked fry. "Now everyone at school will think we're dating."

Across from her, Neji folded his arms and leaned back into his hard-cushioned seat. "You know our purpose here, Tenten. Whether you like it or not has nothing to do with being here."

She scowled and kicked him in the shin.

"Hey!" Neji protested, wincing. "What was that for?"

"For being a smartass." Tenten rolled her eyes and pulled another piece of deep-fried potato from her pile. "At least it doesn't look like we're dating if one of us is in pain."

"And it has to be me?" he muttered beneath his breath.

She paused in the middle of chewing and whistled, though it exited her lips as a soundless _whoo_ of air. "I'm perfectly innocent," she said.

Neji chose to ignore her answer. Instead, he picked at his salad, a pitiful pile of leafy greens turning brown at the edges.

"That looks pathetic," she commented, studying his plastic plate of food.

"I spent part of my allowance on this," he admitted grudgingly. "I should have gone with something else."

"Here, have some of mine," Tenten offered, uncharacteristically nicely. She pushed her paper carton of misshapen ochre bits at him. "Chicken giblets."

He narrowed his eyes. "Those are chicken nuggets."

"But you can't identify which part of the chicken they came from, can you?" she retorted with a grin. "So, they're made with chicken brains for all you know."

Neji tossed her a disgusted stare.

"They're still good anyway." Tenten picked a nugget from the carton and popped it into her mouth, chewing merrily. (Neji's pale face turned a little green.)

"I don't know why we're having fast food," he complained.

"Ask the twit over there." She jerked a thumb to the table a few yards away, where a cheerful blond was enthusiastically chatting with his date, a girl who had bubblegum-pink hair. "Whose idea it was to prevent him from hooking up with the wrong girl, we'll never know."

"You're just pretending not to," Neji informed her. He sighed and jammed his fork into a few layers of wilting vegetables, before wincing and shoving them into his mouth.

"That looks disgusting," Tenten commented lightly. "Sure you won't get sick eating that?"

"I won't get another allowance until tomorrow." Neji's regal face pulled into a grimace, and he swallowed. "I didn't think the product looked so much different from the picture on display."

Tenten looked heavenwards. "If you ate enough at these places, you'd know."

"I don't." He pierced more sad-looking lettuce pieces with his plastic fork.

"Figures." She popped another nugget into her mouth and licked her fingers, occasionally sending a glance towards their charge, if just to make sure that the chosen one didn't do what he wasn't supposed to. "If you make the right choices in these places, the food is sinful as hell. It's McDevil's, after all-"

Neji frowned. "This is McDo-"

"Shhh, he's gonna kiss her!" Tenten interrupted him in a panic when she saw the blond lean over his table, puckering his lips revoltingly at his date. "We gotta do something!"

Tenten grabbed her large drink in a flash. She snatched the flimsy plastic lid off and swung the open cup in a wide arc, drenching everyone from Neji to the couple sitting a few tables away.

The blond sputtered and shot up in his seat, ice-cold soda dribbling off his hair and onto his back. Across from him, the girl with the pink hair stared in shock at her date.

"Disaster averted!" Tenten cheered, turning back to give Neji a triumphant look.

He stared at her, silky long hair plastered against his head. His lilac eyes were simmering with annoyance, promising a burning retribution, and he didn't take his stare off her while he wiped the sweet beverage out of his eyes.

 _Oops._

Tenten grinned sheepishly at him. "Uh, the washroom's over there?"

* * *

 _A/N: The "bad date" scene was actually supposed to happen in The Cheap Way Out in Life, but it didn't pan out there... so here you have it. ;)_

 _As always, thank you for the reviews! So tickled that you guys are enjoying this short series ;)_


	3. The Fight

_The prompt for this was "write about a fight" (thank you Zero!). There were a lot of possibilities where this could go... but I thought about the chariot, and we can't have a title like that without some focus on Neji's car. ;)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 3: The Fight**

Neji's chariot always smelled like wood. Pine wood, to be exact, and Tenten did not like that scent.

She wrinkled her nose.

Next to her, the damn angel was calmly steering the Ferrari, which purred around them like some sort of high-tech machinery that Tenten still had yet to wrap her mind around.

It wasn't like she enjoyed accepting favors from him. Hitching a ride beat walking to school, hands down, however. And the seats of the Ferrari were plush, unlike the stiff, rough seats in the clunky carriages of Hell. She had sustained splinters in her butt sitting in those.

Tenten winced and subconsciously rubbed her behind, remembering some particularly nasty spikes she'd had to drag out of her skin.

"Something crawled up your pants?" Neji asked next to her.

He was watching her from the corner of his pale eyes, she realized, and Tenten bristled at him. "What's it to you, jerk?"

"Don't leave bugs and other nasty things in my car," he answered aloofly, "Those seem to follow you around."

She hissed at him. "They do not!"

His glance in return was superior, calm. His lack of a response served only to incite her further.

"Damn it, take your words back!" Tenten spit, reaching over to slap him in the arm.

Neji moved his elbow away; she glowered.

"Damn you, angel!" she growled, and made a grab for his steering wheel.

The car lurched to the side in the next instant, and loud honks sounded from somewhere behind.

"What do you think you're doing?" Neji muttered, glaring at her after he'd corrected the path of his car.

"Teaching you a lesson," she bit, baring her teeth at him.

"I don't need to be taught a lesson, demon," he returned smoothly. "You're the one with the D scores."

"Well, I'll show you what it's like being in the company of someone like myself," she said angrily, "And may my creepy crawlies haunt you all the way to Heaven!"

Without another word, she reached for the steering wheel again; Neji batted her hand away. The Ferrari went off-course by a few inches.

"I'm sending you to school, Tenten, you should be grateful to me!" he snapped.

"Yeah, well, I don't have bugs on me!" she told him, insulted. "Take your words back."

"Not when you're attempting to kill both of us!" he returned with a frown.

"We can't die." Her hand shot out, and grasped the smooth leather of the wheel, jerking it towards herself.

Neji swore, decidedly un-angel-like, as the car swerved again, throwing them both against their seat belts. He gripped her wrist; she refused to let go, instead shoving the steering wheel in the other direction.

The car lurched, and a van drove by them inches away, its driver honking furiously.

"Look at what you're doing!" Neji hissed, "This is my car!"

"Take those words back!" she cried obstinately. Jiggled the steering wheel.

"I'll take those words back," he muttered, his gaze flying between her and the road. "You're worse than those bugs and nasty things."

"Damn you!" In a swift move, she had unfastened her seat belt and was beginning to clamber onto him, shoving a knee into his thighs.

"Get off me, I'm driving!"

The car careened; Tenten was flung back into her seat, landing ungracefully in a heap, feet in the air.

She was momentarily stunned, and Neji gained control over the vehicle once again.

They made it to school in record time.

"Get out," Neji said, when he'd pulled into a parking lot. "I'm not driving you to school ever again."

He wasn't?

Tenten stared at him in shock, disappointment crashing into her.

Her bottom lip trembled. "Do you hate me now?"

Neji gave a frustrated sigh and glanced at her. Something on her face must have affected him, because he froze, and looked away. "Go to class, Tenten," he said tightly.

"But do you hate me?" she pressed. Perhaps she'd really gone overboard on the trip here. Guilt swam in her gut. The High Mistress of Hell would so have her head if the word spread. "I'm sorry, Neji."

He stiffened further in his seat, staring straight ahead. "Go to class. We have a mission to complete."

And after a pause, "No, I don't hate you."

It felt as if there was a helium balloon in her chest, and Tenten leaned forward, pulling him into a loose hug. "I'm so glad," she cried, pressing a loud kiss to his cheek. "You're not an incorrigible asshole-angel-thing, after all."

He mouthed her last few words, an incredulous look on his face.

"I'm going to class now," Tenten announced brightly, and opened the car door. "See you around school, Neji."

* * *

 _A/N: I found this pretty hilarious lol. ;) This is like_ Racetrack to My Heart _, except things go a little more out of control here. ;)_

 _No clue where the rest of this series will lead.. so we'll see. ;)_


	4. A Formidable Pair

_Back to the weekly update. ;) Prompt:_ "Write about a pair that is formidable together but useless apart." _(Thank you Zero!) Because I am still dragging my feet on creating any actual plot for angel!Neji and demon!Tenten, I now present another pretty pointless installment. ;)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 4: A Formidable Pair**

"How on _Earth_ is this supposed to help with our mission?" Tenten hissed, holding up a large, metallic sieve. "Making a cake is stupid and useless and I can't cook anything to save my life-"

"I can't bake a cake, either," Neji answered dryly. "But we do need to get this done."

They were in his kitchen, which, like the Ferrari-chariot, was decked out with the most beautiful electrical appliances that Tenten had ever seen. And she didn't know what half of them were for.

"And so you expect it to turn out like this damn thing here?" she snarled, jabbing a finger into the printed recipe on the kitchen counter. On it was a beautiful cake, with chocolate ganache as a glaze, and some fruits and rolled wafers arranged elegantly on it. "I suppose you're hoping to lump whatever we bake under that pretty chocolate and present it as that."

He raised an eyebrow, smirking smugly. "How did you guess?"

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Figures. The know-it-all front is just a facade."

"Hey," Neji protested, "The A grades I score are legitimate."

"When you aren't brainwashing the teachers," she muttered under her breath.

"I do not brainwash them," he informed her grudgingly. "Anyway, the cake."

He held up a heavy plastic bag of white powder, getting ready to tip it into the sieve.

"Wait!" Tenten shrieked. "That's confectioner's sugar! Icing sugar! We're supposed to be sieving flour here, you dolt!"

"A-names, Tenten," he shot back, annoyed. But Neji did not tip any sugar into the sieve, and instead set the bag down. "I'll get the flour."

It seemed as if angels had no idea what went into baking whatsoever, because Tenten had to point out all the wrong ingredients that he was bringing to the counter.

"I thought you knew everything," she goaded. "You can't even tell vanilla extract from a bottle of wine."

"They're both alcohol anyway," Neji groused sullenly. "It's not like you can bake, either."

"I can so bake," she shot back, and grabbed the electric mixer. Once all the ingredients were in the bowl, she shoved the metal whisks into the mixture and flicked the mixer switch on to High.

Egg, flour, and all manner of powdery substances flew everywhere. Yellow slime smeared on Tenten's apron, and Neji received a generous layer of powder on his face.

"Maybe we should use a bigger bowl," Neji observed.

"You're telling me now," Tenten snapped, baring her teeth at him. "Look where you got us!"

"It's not like you knew any better," he pointed out.

She glared at him. All the ingredients in the tiny bowl had vacated it, save for a faint trace of flour and egg. They set about cleaning up the mess.

Three attempts and one successful cake mixture later, Tenten sighed as they finally slid the springform pan into the oven.

"Now for the ganache," Neji commanded.

It took another few attempts to get the ganache right, by which time the kitchen was filled with a delicious, chocolaty aroma.

"My mouth is watering," Tenten said, licking her lips. She slid multiple glances towards the oven.

"I can see that," Neji told her wryly. "Wipe that demon spit up before it corrodes anything."

"It does not corrode anything!" she bit, and made a face.

"Here I thought you were so very powerful." He shrugged, turned away from her.

Tenten raised a fist to hit him. "Why you-"

"Cake's ready." Neji calmly turned to the oven and pulled the heavy door open, reaching for the oven rack with a mittened hand.

She wanted to glower at him, she really did, but the cake that had risen up in the pan looked springy and warm and delicious, and Tenten forgot all about Neji.

"It looks good!" she gasped, salivating more. "I want to eat it-"

"Don't drool in it," he reminded her. The angel slid the cake tin carefully out of the oven, careful to not let it within the range of Tenten's spit.

"I don't even know how this relates to our mission," Tenten whined as he brought the cake to the counter and set it on a cooling rack. "They don't need cake."

"And you do?" he asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Yes," she told him. "I want to spread the ganache!"

"No, you'll just ruin it," Neji told her. "Like you ruined the cake mix and two bowls and the rest of the eggs."

"And you almost ruined the mix with your wrong ingredients!" Tenten retorted. "You didn't even latch the springform pan before you attempted to pour the mix in!"

He winced at the reminder of another almost-catastrophe. "Well, we'll take turns with the ganache. Maybe it'll turn out right like that."

She looked dubiously at him, and very reluctantly agreed.

The chocolate ganache turned out near perfect, much to their surprise. The first bowl of cream boiled over, though the second simmered like the recipe said it would, and both Neji and Tenten watched in awe as the the cream-and-chocolate-chip mix was mixed into smooth, silky chocolate.

"This is turning out right because of me," Tenten proclaimed. "It's my luck that is giving us this beautiful chocolate."

Neji scoffed. "It's your luck that ruined all the things we've been working on so far."

She blew a raspberry at him. "Fine, but I'm pouring the ganache."

"You're going to get it everywhere," Neji said matter-of-factly.

Half of the ganache did spill onto the counter, and it took another batch to completely cover the rest of the cake. What resulted was a masterpiece that was very similar to the picture on the recipe, surprising both first-time bakers.

"Look at that," Tenten remarked. "Maybe we make a good team."

Neji's features tightened into one of distaste. "I would hope not. You're a filthy-"

"I am not filthy!" she shouted, rounding upon him.

He dodged her fist, and another, stepping away from her, and as Tenten advanced on him, her foot slipped in a patch of egg that they'd missed while cleaning up.

For a moment, she flailed, wobbling on the one foot.

Neji looked past her and saw her arm come dangerously close to smashing into their complete masterpiece, and panicked.

He grabbed her by the collar. Yanked her away from the cake.

That, unfortunately, meant that he had pulled her in the direction of himself, and she fell heavily against him, somehow landing them both on the floor with a heavy _thud_.

Neji glared at her; Tenten sputtered.

"What was that?" she growled.

"I saved the cake," he answered shortly, looking at their perfect edible masterpiece, which was sitting oh-so-happily on the counter like its very existence wasn't just threatened a few moments ago.

"Whatever," she muttered, her cheeks flushing a pretty red, and picked herself off him (Neji didn't want to think too much about that - he needed as little contact with demons as possible).

"I'll pack the cake," he informed her. From the corner of his eye, Neji noticed that Tenten paused at the threshold of the kitchen.

"I should supervise you," she said, turning back. "Who knows what you'll do to destroy that cake."

"I won't destroy it," he huffed indignantly.

All she did was roll her eyes and step back. "Yeah, sure, A-grade genius. Like you haven't almost destroyed the kitchen yourself."

* * *

 _A/N: I'm not completely sure how baking scenes always turn out so long (the one in Blackmail was 4k words)... but okay. ;) This amused me greatly. ;)_

 _As always, thank you for taking the time to review!_


	5. A Narrow Escape

_Things get a little more serious this installment. ;) Prompt: "Write about someone making a narrow escape." (Thank you Zero!)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 5: A Narrow Escape**

Neji was pissed, and Tenten swore.

The school parking lot was empty, filled only with the weak orange glow of streetlamps and the incessant chirp-chirping of grasshoppers in the field nearby, and Tenten was mightily glad that there were no cars around. Or no eyewitnesses, for that matter.

What in all Hell did she do to incur Neji's wrath?

(Surely it couldn't be how she'd made that suggestion to Naruto about the cake, to place it on one end of a makeshift see-saw and slam the other end down...)

(Well, Naruto did just that, and the cake flew right smack into the face of the girl Naruto was supposed to get together with.)

"What in Heaven's name were you thinking?" Neji hissed, sending a glowing white bolt whistling at her from the palm of his hand.

Tenten yelped and flung herself to the side. The shot barely missed - it was hot and blinding and _good_ , and good would destroy her. "I was making progress on our mission, damn you!"

"That was not making progress in any way!" the angel growled in return.

"Well, it's not like your silly idea of 'talking to everyone at the party' actually helped!" she retorted. "He was going to go chat up Pinkie again and you know we don't want that to happen."

(She bit down a grin at the thought of Neji, drenched in sticky, foaming fountain soda.)

"And for your stuck-up nasty information, I don't think about anything in Heaven's name," Tenten spat. "You can be the goody-two-shoes all you like."

Neji rolled his eyes, but his fury was far from extinguished. He curled his fingers; white energy gathered again in his palm. "There was cake," he said, his tone dangerously low, "All over her face."

She huffed self-righteously. "Well, it's not like you, with all your angelic powers, were able to stop that."

"I wouldn't have to," he bristled, "If you hadn't pulled that in the very first place!"

The chocolate ganache cake that they'd painstakingly created together had landed, so very accurately, on Hinata's wide-eyed face.

And, like Tenten had hoped, Naruto was aghast and stupefied that he'd plastered the girl with four layers of chocolate something-or-other, that he'd gone over to try and apologize and clean her off.

It had all been going very well, until someone screeched something about a food fight. Party food was flying in every direction the next moment (Tenten thought a chicken wing jabbed her in the eye), and she'd found Neji and yanked him out of the place with her, narrowly avoiding a cream pie to her face.

And some help that had been, when Neji rounded on her after they'd run barely a block away from Naruto's house. Which led them to their current situation.

Energy crackled in Neji's fist; Tenten gulped and stared at it. They were explicitly forbidden from using any powers unless the circumstances absolutely called for it... and this was no such situation.

"Get a hold of yourself, angel-brains!" she yelped, watching the white, hissing ball nervously. The previous attack had left a shallow rut in the parking lot asphalt. "This isn't the time for tricks!"

"Perhaps you'll come to your senses if I got some into you!" Neji snapped. His pale eyes were blazing and eerily glowing, and Tenten didn't know if she could really leave this situation unharmed. It seemed as if Neji was on the verge of losing control of himself.

"Even so, I'm not your enemy, damn it!" Tenten shouted, casting her eyes about for a possible solution. There was nothing around them save for empty lots and streetlamps in the distance, shining unhelpfully from afar. Neji raised his fist to strike.

"I am-"

Tenten didn't pause to hear the rest of his words. With a swish of her hand, she cast a darkness spell around Neji, and skipped so she was behind him, in his blind spot, while he turned his head from side to side, trying to see out of her charm.

"Demon-witch, what did you do?" he bit, pale eyes bulging with the strain he was placing on them.

She left the spell intact and stepped in close, pinning his arms to his sides with a tight hug.

Neji sucked a sharp breath in, tried to whirl around, the energy ball still glowing powerfully in his palm. He was still too close to launching it at her, and her pulse raced.

"Relax!" Tenten yelled in his ear, "It's me!"

She released the blindness spell then. Neji showed no signs of recognition, only dilated pupils and his chest heaving as he gasped, and she panicked.

"Neji!" she hissed, more quietly this time. "It's me, Tenten! Do you recognize me? We're supposed to be partners!"

There was no reaction, or any sign that he'd heard. Tenten repeated her words. "You're an angel, remember?" she added, "You're the goody-two-shoes and you're supposed to be on a mission right now, not attacking me."

It was several more moments before the fire in his eyes dimmed (he was still looking at her sideways) and Neji sagged in her arms, blinking dazedly.

Tenten released him in a hurry when the energy ball in his hand dissipated.

"What happened?" he asked, bewildered.

She stared cautiously at him, wondering if he had any idea what he'd been about to do. "Don't you remember the chase?"

Neji shook his head. "I just remember... the party, and... the food fight."

It wasn't something she wanted to get into right now, not when the fight could have turned insanely messy. "It's fine. Let's get back to Naruto's. We need to check if things are going fine there."

He nodded slowly, still a little lost, and Tenten winced. To be perfectly honest, she much preferred Neji's company when he had all his faculties intact, and wasn't looking at her like some lost little lamb.

With any luck, he'd return to normal soon.

* * *

 _A/N: I was going to write about an actual fight scene.. but that was boring compared to Neji and Tenten fighting. ;) Credits for the angel-and-demon-on-shoulder idea goes to Yahboobeh.. This is the aftermath. ;)_

 _Thank you, as always, for taking the time to review! I'm glad you guys are enjoying this series ;)_


	6. A Plan of Defense

_Wrote this after spending a week writing KuroFai... I'm not sure if you can tell that I was working on autopilot with this one... I'm having motivation issues all over the place. :o Prompt is "_ Write about a plan of defense. _" (Thank you Zero!) Thanks too to the anon who asked what the consequences of the previous part might be. :)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 6: A Plan of Defense**

"Will you tell me why we're over at your apartment instead of keeping watch on the humans?" Neji huffed, folding his arms. He was leaning against the doorjamb of Tenten's bedroom, casting a distasteful glance across the mess on her floor. It figured that the demon lived in a hellish place.

"We're coming up with a plan!" she finally hissed, powering her computer on. "Of defense!"

"Defense against what?" Neji's smooth forehead wrinkled. "As far as I know, we haven't encountered any threats-"

" _You_ are the threat," Tenten answered, quirking an eyebrow at him. (It was like a slap to his face.) She leaned back into her seat, which gave an awful squeak. "Remember?"

Neji didn't want to remember. He'd lost control of himself two nights ago in the school parking lot, and Tenten had informed him of his attempts to attack her. Personally, he remembered nothing of that - just the party, the chocolate cake in Hinata's face, and confronting Tenten after they'd narrowly missed the food fight.

"I'm not a threat," he protested.

"Are too." While the computer booted up, Tenten whirled around in her chair to face him. "You know the consequences could have been a lot more serious than that."

He refrained from making a retort. There had been dark burn marks on the asphalt when he'd come to his senses that night - being unconscious of releasing his energy bolts had shaken him - what else would he have done if Tenten had not stopped him?

That those white bolts weren't his strongest attack had him both relieved and uneasy. What if there were innocents around? What if he wrecked the mission? Why was he the one out of control, instead of that aggravating demon?

"What plan have you come up with?" he asked, skirting the issue. "I'd think a D-grade student couldn't possibly weave a watertight plan at all."

"All I need is a plan that's idiot-proof," Tenten hissed at him. She folded her arms and glowered. "And since you aren't helping, I'll search the internet for something."

Neji scoffed. "The internet? What good is that?"

She ignored him while she logged in, and opened up her browser window. Curious, he stepped closer, until he stood at the back of her chair.

And promptly gaped when he saw her search history, which came up in the auto-complete box when she began to type. "'How to kill humans'? 'Big explosions'? 'How do humans die'? What in Heaven's name have you been looking up, demon?"

Tenten turned and grinned at him over her shoulder. "Hey, I have hobbies when I'm off-duty, you know."

"Killing humans is your hobby?" Neji breathed, aghast. "How did you even get on this mission?"

She shrugged. "You know how the fate of the world rests on Naruto's shoulders. My queen refused to let your people be the only ones to aid him."

Gobsmacked, Neji opened and closed his mouth, momentarily speechless.

"So, my plan. I need to know your weaknesses," Tenten began. "In order to stop you quickly and efficiently, I need to know the most direct method of taking you down."

He narrowed his eyes. "No. That will only give you an advantage against me after this mission is over."

The thought of Tenten, or any other demon, striking at his blind spot made him too queasy for words.

"Come on," she whined, "It'll only be for this mission. And I won't tell anyone."

He surveyed her distrustfully. "No. I don't believe you'll keep your word. You're a demon."

Tenten blew a raspberry at him. "Well, you suck."

"I'm right, aren't I?" Neji countered. It still didn't sit well with him that she wanted to come up with a plan against him, an angel! "Just do whatever you did that night to stop me. It seemed to work then."

"But that's no fun!" she whined. "I want explosions! Color and fire and excitement!"

Was she crazy?

"No," he said firmly. "You can find that elsewhere, after the mission. I don't trust myself in your hands as it is."

A sly smirk crawled onto her face then. "Don't trust me with your unconscious body, huh, angel? Do you think I'd make a clown out of you?"

Neji winced at the mental imagery he was presented with. "I don't trust you, demon, period."

"I don't trust you either," she replied with a smile. "So I guess we're back to square one."

"Which is?" Neji pressed his lips together, waiting for an answer.

"I cast a darkness spell on you," Tenten provided. She turned back to her screen. "And maybe an immobilization charm, if you're especially violent."

"I'm not violent," he muttered.

She ignored him, typing as she spoke, "Hey! The internet suggests water balloons! I'll fill them with flour and egg and water, how about that?"

Neji glared at her. He would absolutely not wake up to find himself a gooey, sopping muck. "You wouldn't."

Tenten merely grinned at him. "Well, unless you provide me with a better solution, angel, that'll be my answer."

"Damn you," he growled. Wasn't there a solution that wouldn't compromise the secrets of his kind? Why did he even have to work with this... this thing that drove him up the wall?

"You're welcome," she replied cattily. "You'll thank me for it, angel."

* * *

 _A/N: Credits for Tenten's shocking search history goes to_ white noise and brine _(who I hope is safe and alive and well!)_

 _It's not 8am yet and I'm so tired... leave comments/suggestions/etc... Love hearing from you guys. :)_


	7. A Plan Gone Horribly Wrong

_I was initially going to write this full of bad guys and a fight full of action, but I sat on the prompt two weeks and it didn't inspire me. Cue husband and I visiting Walmart, upon which I discovered the "50 nuggets for $10" sale at McDonald's... And the thought of Tenten succumbing to it made me laugh. So... here you go. ;) Prompt was "_ Write about a plan going horribly wrong. _" (Thank you Zero!)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 7: A Plan Gone Horribly Wrong**

It began with a pile of chicken nuggets.

Or, rather, it was the grandest plan ever, delayed by ten minutes when Tenten spotted the bright orange poster on the fast food restaurant window, and demanded that they stop.

"Because fifty chicken nuggets for ten bucks is the most insane deal ever," she declared, stinking up the entire interior of Neji's expensive car with the scent of deep-fried chicken giblets.

Next to her, Neji tried not to roll his eyes. "Didn't you say it yourself that those are made of chicken brains?"

He looked askance at the bucket in distaste; Tenten was chomping through her eleventh piece. His car reeked of stale oil and artery-clogging grease.

"I won't have to eat for days if I finish this entire bucket!" Tenten informed him smugly, grinning as she popped another golden shape into her mouth. "'S cheap."

"The plan," he redirected their conversation, "We will take Naruto and Hinata out to the movies, and they will declare their undying love for each other."

"It should work," she said around her bits of chicken. "I don't even know why this mission even exists."

"Because it's been prophesied that their child is _the_ chosen one," Neji returned calmly, returning his eyes to the road (was that a _crumb_ falling between the center arm rest and Tenten's seat?)

"Yeah, whatever," Tenten replied dismissively, waving her chicken nugget at him, legs crossed around her bucket. "I want to get this over with and get back to my glorious food."

He snorted. Food from McDevil's was hellish.

* * *

As it was, they picked the boisterous boy and the blushing girl up, and bought the tickets to some _Ultimate Ninja_ movie. It was hardly the first showing, so the theater was relatively empty. Neji sat to Hinata's right, Naruto to her left, and Tenten on Naruto's other side, effectively boxing the couple in.

Why humans would want to bring buckets of crunchy food and drinks in flimsy cups in with them, Neji would never figure out. But he could see the way Naruto surrounded himself with containers of popcorn, and on the other end of their row, Tenten was stealing his drinks.

After she'd finished those fifty pieces of chicken bits.

And she was chatting with Naruto while Hinata sat and pressed her fingertips together.

In another reality, Neji might have tried bashing his head against the seat in front of him. But not this one.

"Talk to him," he instructed Hinata, who gulped and nodded jerkily. She turned, faltered for a bit, finally tapped Naruto on his arm.

Neji exhaled in relief. Something was finally going right in the grand plan. Hinata obviously liked the boy, and maybe he would be smart enough to accept her confession (if she managed to choke it out) for what it was.

"N-Naruto," Hinata stammered, cheeks flushed, her body quivering with fright. The blond looked guilelessly at her, which only seemed to unnerve her further. "I hope we enjoy this movie," she finished lamely.

It was a start, and Naruto grinned stupidly at her.

The lights dimmed, the theater grew quiet, and the movie opened with several gory action scenes. Neji winced in distaste (angels shouldn't be subject to such horror) and sat back in his seat, leaning away from the too-wide screen.

(Hinata was gasping, Naruto was crunching, and Tenten had commandeered one of Naruto's soda cups.)

The scenes from the movie turned progressively bloodier and more suspenseful. Neji tried not to watch most of it. Hinata squirmed in fright and tried to grasp at Naruto, but the boy was buried in his piles of popcorn.

Tenten was looking as pale as ice somehow, and Neji stared when she clutched at her stomach and ran out of the theater midway.

It had to be the chicken nuggets. It just had to be.

Barely had Neji any time to turn reproving thoughts on Tenten's sudden departure, when Naruto began choking on his popcorn, loud, horrible coughs that drowned out the romantic scene on the silver screen. Hinata looked at him in concern, hand reaching out in an attempt to help, and Naruto-

He tore out of the theater after Tenten, hand over his mouth and retching the entire way.

Which left Hinata and Neji and the gory movie, and the scattered audience that was, no doubt, glad to see Naruto go.

Naruto did not return at any point through the rest of the movie. Neither did Tenten, and by the end of the show, Hinata was crying silent tears next to him.

(He was later to discover that Tenten and Naruto had gone to McDevil's for more chicken nuggets.)

Hyuuga Neji, right hand of his beloved angelic boss, hated his life, very, very much.

* * *

 _A/N: This cracked me up utterly. I'm sorry if it wasn't the same for you. ;) Movie setting courtesy of the husband and I watching Ellen DeGeneres's shows on youtube lately._

 _Thank you, as always, for taking the time to review! :)_


	8. Fire

_Sorry about the delay between updates on this - it took a while to be inspired. ;) Prompt was "Write about fire." (Thank you Zero!)_

 _To all those who requested more romance... That wasn't really the intention of this series. ;) I changed the genre to Humor/Friendship for now. (Protip: Do Not tell me to hurry with updates. Thank you.)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 8: Fire**

"That was singularly your fault and you know it," Neji hissed in school the next day.

They were tucked in the thick apple tree grove behind the science labs, with the hot summer sun bearing down on them, and Tenten was glowering at him with her hands on her hips.

"My fault?" she sniped, "Well, it's your fault for coming up with such a stupid plan. Of course movies aren't the best way for people to confess their love for each other. Or even to fall in love."

"What then?" The angel narrowed his eyes, folded his arms across his chest. "I'm not... one of them, and neither are you. I don't know how to make them... fall in love."

Tenten smirked at him. "Well, that's where watching romantic movies yourself comes in, you dunce."

"D names are yours," Neji muttered sourly under his breath. She elbowed him hard in the ribs. "How does watching romantic movies even help?"

"They give you ideas," she explained impatiently. "Movies don't make you fall in love, but they give you ideas about what people do before they fall in love."

The angel stared dubiously at her. "Anyway, for all my trouble, I have to report to my master in a bit. Our plan is coming under fire."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, leave it to me to come up with a better plan, why don't you. I can guarantee they'll fall hard _in love_."

Tenten said the last bit with an emphatic wriggle of her fingers. "It's not like you're the only one who's failing," she continued. "My Queen wants an audience with me. In the depths of Hell."

At that, the angel sent her an inquisitive glance. "What is Hell like?" he blurted.

"Lots of fire. No chicken giblets." She shrugged. "It's nothing like the great marble columns and beautiful trees and fruits and stuff. Hell is a great underground cave with fire and lava everywhere, and we have carriages that have splinters where you sit."

She was still resentful about the damn splinters. Neji winced.

"Anyway, I don't know why the wood doesn't burn in Hell. The carriages are pulled by these ugly horse-monsters and we live in mud huts. The Queen has a huge palace though. I hear she even sleeps in fire."

"Where do you live in Hell?" he asked then, surprising her. "In a mud hut?"

Tenten blinked at him; a sly smile crept onto her lips. "Why? Do you want to visit?"

"No!" Neji snapped. The tips of his ears turned pink. "I just wondered if a demon like you suffers all the time there."

She sent him a smug look then. "No, why would I? I was born there. I'm impervious to most fires."

"Most fires?" he echoed, and Tenten snapped her mouth shut.

"Well yeah, how can I not when I practically live in fire?" she blabbered, turned away. That had been a slip of her tongue; certainly an angel had no business knowing what could very well hurt her. "Anyway, you'd better be going. I don't want that loudmouthed idiot to get into trouble while we're both indisposed."

Neji snorted lightly. "Perhaps one of us should stay here to watch over them while the other goes."

She paused. "You stay, then."

"I suggested that with your staying here in mind," he retorted, smooth brow crinkling.

"No deal. I need to answer my summons immediately." The clock was already ticking - she had to go. No way was a stupid angel going to stop her (especially not when her Queen was prone to temper tantrums - she didn't want to spend another whole year cleaning stupid shoes).

"This better not result in disaster," Neji cautioned. His pale eyes glowed as he watched her; she shrugged, began walking away.

When she was a sufficient distance away from the angel, she took a deep breath, drew a blazing ring of fire in the air with her fingertip, and stepped in.

* * *

 _A/N: More world-building this time.. plus we find out that Tenten is weak against something. ;) Who knows where all this information will take us?_


	9. Supernatural

_Special thanks to_ Yahboobeh _and_ expiration _for inspiring this part ;) Prompt: "Write about something supernatural." (Thank you Zero!)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 9: Supernatural**

In his mind, he had pictured himself at the end of today ensconced in a meditative trance. In his mind, _There and Back Again_ was a whimsical mortal book about fuzz-footed creatures, not a tedious journey between his home and the very depths of a burning Hell, so scorching that his skin had begun to peel.

In his mind, Neji had not expected himself to be hurrying back to Heaven, foreboding and worry twisting into a tight mess in his stomach.

"Discuss our proposed alterations to the mission with your partner," the archangel Kakashi had said, single eye glued to the thick gilded book he always kept by his side. (Neji was never certain whether the cover was a front - his superior sometimes wore the most lecherous grin reading that tome and snapped it shut in a hurry whenever the King of Heaven breezed by, wizened and shrewd.)

"I will expect the changes to be carried out immediately," Kakashi had pressed, flicking a dismissive glance at Neji. "You shall intercept her wherever she is."

There had been no choice but to obey, except there was a little problem: Tenten was not to be found anywhere on the mortal plane. Neji had checked. Her apartment, and her friends', McDevil's, and even the school as a last resort.

Aggravated, he had returned to Kakashi, explained the situation.

Kakashi had sent him to Hell.

And there, Neji had been overwhelmed by _everything_. The heat, the despairing screeches of souls burning alive, the rickety carriages. The splinters Tenten had told him about burrowed into the backs of his thighs, and Neji couldn't disembark from the carriage quickly enough. How the blazes did Tenten survive in that place?

He had very quickly decided that he did not like Hell. Especially when the Queen was a drunkard - she took liberal gulps from waist-high bottles of wine, each sparking into flame at the very mouth of the bottle when the seal was cracked. (And unlike Tenten, who looked like a human as much as he did for the most part, the Queen had rich blond hair and a glistening red gem on her forehead, and an ample chest that had all but spilled out of her leather armor. The sleek horns protruding from her head did not help.)

The Queen had taken one look at him in utter disdain, and waved him off. "Tenten is in Heaven," she had announced imperiously. "There are things she will be conferring with you about."

His eyes had widened. "Is she allowed in Heaven, Queen of Hell? Where would she be?"

Her Royal Deviousness had glanced at him like he were a fool. "In your quarters, of course. I granted her permission."

Neji had gaped and spluttered before the Queen.

"But those are my quarters!" he had protested. Surely Tenten would be gloating over all of this - her queen putting him down, and her prancing about his rooms. There would be chicken nugget crumbs _everywhere_.

"Watch your tongue, angel-spawn," Queen Tsunade had snapped. "Begone with you."

Neji had found himself thrown unceremoniously out of Hell.

.

And so he scrambled back to Heaven in the most dignified manner possible, speed-walking through the wisteria trellises crisscrossing lush orchards. It was made worse by the sheer numbers of couples walking hand-in-hand obstructing him at every step of the way. (Why had no one told him it was a holiday? Surely he was entitled to a day off in lieu.)

He hurried down marble-lined walkways with large arched windows, finally sought out his rooms (which was really just a large sitting area with his bed at the far corner - he didn't have that high a rank, after all) and slammed the door open.

"Oooh! Hi Neji!" Tenten wriggled her fingers at him. "Took you long enough to get here!"

She was sitting in his bed. Eating those damned chicken nuggets.

Neji could've groaned - he was willing to bet there were chicken nugget crumbs between his sheets.

"What are you doing in my bed?" he bristled, after making sure the door was well and truly shut.

"Well." And here, Tenten shrugged. "It's cold up here, Neji! Why didn't you say so earlier? I figured that since you're my host, you're responsible for my welfare, which includes keeping me warm. Your bed is so soft, by the way."

There were so many things fighting for dominance over his tongue that he remained silent for a moment, utterly flabbergasted. Tenten possessed extraordinary logic. (Perhaps he ought to expect that much of a supernatural being of her status.) Finally, he prised his lips apart. "Which part of 'You never get in someone else's bed' do you not understand?"

She made a face at him, and crawled out slowly, heaving a large bucket of nuggets along with her. "Well, I don't see those rules anywhere around here."

Tenten looked pointedly around at his walls; he tried to keep his temper down.

"I will present you with a written set of rules after our discussion," he groused. "For now, there are things that require our attention."

Tenten smiled brightly at him. "Sure," she said, kicking her bare feet against the side of his bed and pointing. "Now fetch me my shoes, and we shall talk."

Neji stared between where Tenten's shoes were lying haphazardly across the room, and the demon herself. "No," he bit, trying not to groan. "Get it yourself."

Today really sucked.

* * *

 _A/N: Poor Neji. LOL_

 _To those of you who are still following my updates/reading/reviewing, thank you! :)_


	10. A Last Stand

_Prompt: "Write about a last stand." (Thank you Zero!)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 10: A Last Stand**

"No. We're not doing this. Definitely not." Neji planted his feet on the glittering asphalt, folded his arms across his chest.

Next to him, Tenten smirked. "You just don't think we'll succeed. But we will."

"This doesn't even have anything to do with our mission!"

"Chicken nuggets have _everything_ to do with our mission."

"How, pray tell?" He glared at her, thin lips pressed into a tight line.

"They'll give me peace of mind. You know how that goes," Tenten said brightly, waving her arms to prove her point. "Chicken nuggets sustain me. When I have sustenance, I have energy to move. When I have energy to move, I have time to focus on our mission."

"And how would a chicken nugget factory help with that?" Neji snapped.

Because that was where they were. In the parking lot of the McDevil's chicken nugget factory. Beneath the glow of the full moon, the smooth-walled buildings were towering, bone-white and silent. Huge, trundling trucks had long since left the boundaries of the chicken wire fence, and there were only the small cars of employees left now—just a handful of them. White smoke rose from some of the chimneys further away, and the entire place smelled faintly like stale oil and processed chicken.

Neji had the brief urge to throw up.

"There's millions of chicken nuggets here! Can you imagine how much energy that'll give me? I could last for days! Months! Years!"

"You're going to suffer a massive bout of indigestion and be bedridden for a week," he answered flatly. "No. We aren't filling my car up with chicken nuggets. You left enough crumbs in there the last time."

Tenten flicked a sly look at him. "You're still sour about that, huh? I didn't think an angel would be so particular about crumbs in his chariot."

"It's my car." Arguing with demons was pointless; he should have known that by now.

"But in here, they're freshly fried," she cooed. Her dark eyes darted around for an entrance into the factory. "Golden, delicious chicken giblets! It's making my mouth water."

She swallowed loudly. Neji winced.

"I think I see an opening." Tenten took off, and he was forced to follow in her footsteps. If anything happened to her, _he_ was the one left with the entire mission on his shoulders. And it was trouble enough without putting himself through more.

They got into the factory somehow. It turned out that the demon was deft at picking locks (Neji worried about the integrity of his car), and they slipped in through a tiny door. Past that was a dimly-lit hallway lined with closed wooden doors. The first door had an etched gold sign reading "Accounting", the second read "HR".

"I wonder what 'HR' means," Tenten said, skipping down the corridor. "I don't smell chicken nuggets in here."

Neji tried very hard not to roll his eyes. Instead, he focused on keeping an eye out around them. "It means 'Human Resources'. Stop, there's a security camera there! Stop!"

Tenten halted right at the corner of the corridor, and Neji had a moment to be thankful. He didn't think they were in any sort of trouble... yet.

"Do they use humans as resources? For the nuggets?" Tenten gasped and turned back to him. "Are there human brains in it too?"

Neji wanted to be violently sick. "You deserve a D in your understanding of this world."

She shrugged. "Anyway. You mentioned a security camera."

"It's right above us. I think we should start shutting them down before the entire security team is upon us."

"Oh." Tenten slanted a mischievous look at him. "I didn't know the great angel Neji was afraid of the security team."

"I just don't want more interruptions than we already have." He glanced sullenly at her. "Put a confounding spell on it, if you have one."

Tenten did exactly that without batting an eyelid, though he was certain that they had been captured on the video feeds anyway. It would be some time before they were caught, though, and he intended to hustle his mission partner through this.

They made their way through the maze-like corridors, headed down one way until they realized that they'd reached a dead end, before retracing their steps. It seemed like forever and many confounded security cameras before they arrived at the nugget processing plant—what looked like a square mile of white walls, meandering conveyor belts that passed through all sorts of large metal ovens, steel industrial mixers that were mixing chicken bits and flour, and many other metallic appliances that were beyond their understanding.

Fortunately (or otherwise), Tenten did not dally. They sneaked around humming pieces of machinery and agreed that the workers had to be lured away. Neji grudgingly volunteered for the job.

It beat finding Tenten in his bed chomping down on chicken nuggets. If she had enough of nuggets, then she wouldn't leave crumbs all over his belongings again.

His hope for that flickered dangerously while he lured workers away from their stations, one at a time, to the manager's office at the back of the facilities. Throughout, he glimpsed parts of the nugget production process—pink bits of chicken being ground into tiny pieces, then mixed into a dough, which was squeezed into molds and then marched down conveyor belts through a fryer.

Where they collected to cool before being frozen, Tenten had taken up position.

He saw her squashing handfuls of nuggets into her mouth.

He hurried the last of the staff to the manager's office while under a superficial disguise, feeling a foreboding weight on his shoulders the entire time. This was trespassing and robbery—was Kakashi going to have his head for it?

When he returned to Tenten, she looked a little sick in the face. She'd put an arm out to stopper the flow of glistening, golden chicken nuggets, and they were accumulating along her arm into a growing pile that was beginning to spill over the thin steel barriers on either side of the conveyor belt.

"There's too many of them," she said around her mouthful of chicken nuggets and pointed to a large, full sack behind her. (Where had she found that?) The sack was darkened with oil in various places, and bumpy with what was probably a thousand nuggets. "I can't finish them all! I've filled my bag. And my stomach. Eat some! We can't win like this!"

"Win?" he echoed dumbly.

"It's a war against the chicken giblets!" Tenten sent him a look that said she clearly thought he was daft. "I was so close to winning, too!"

Neji let his gaze follow the long, long line of nuggets marching through the factory, still running, and shook his head. She never stood a chance. "You're insane."

She was still eating, and her face was looking increasingly green.

He really, really did not want puke all over the inside of his car.

And the staff he'd locked in the manager's office were starting to pound on the door. There was no way he was dealing with them when they broke out.

"We have to fall back," he said. "There's too many of them."

"I can finish this!"

"No," he said, grabbed her oily arm away from the conveyor belt so the nuggets began to march along again.

"We can't! That was my last stand!"

"We're going." Neji watched as the door to the manager's office burst open, and factory staff began streaming out. "Hurry!"

Tenten pouted at him, her face pale and sickly. She grabbed the neck of her sack with inhuman strength, though, and he pulled her through the clutter of nugget-making machines. From the corner of his eye, Neji saw the pile of nuggets on the conveyor belt wedging itself into the too-small opening of the next machine. More nuggets were beginning to pile up.

A worker spied them and shouted; they began to sprint, the angel, the demon, and the sack of chicken nuggets trailing along behind them.

A security guard blocked their exit on one corridor. They were forced to double back and try another corridor (all the hallways looked the same), and there were footsteps and shouts closing in.

Tenten, green in the face, jerked her hand out of Neji's. Her fingertip ignited with a blue-green fire. She drew a portal into the air ahead of them.

"Go first," she said, looking back warily.

It wasn't the best option they had, but they were running out of time. Neji held his breath, stepped into the dark, echoing chill, and watched as Tenten shoved her sack of nuggets in before she followed.

Then, they were enveloped in darkness.

* * *

 _A/N: one word: LOL_

 _Seriously though, I couldn't write about a real last stand since there's been hardly any mention of threats or enemies. So, the next closest thing would have been Neji's longstanding feud with the chicken nuggets. ;) You know someone's been watching entirely too many "How It's Made" videos. ;)_

 _No, I don't know where they're going or what's going to happen, either. ;) Are there people still following this fic? It seems as though the fandom has shrunk lately ;)_


	11. One's Entire Life

_I think I'm having entirely too much fun with this series. LOL. Prompt: "Write about the entire life of a person in less than 700 words." (Thank you Zero!)_

 _For_ expiration _, whose birthday is tomorrow. Happy Birthday! ! ! ! with a side of chicken nuggets ;)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 11: One's Entire Life**

They say that, right before you die, your entire life flashes in front of your eyes.

Neji saw his entire existence—both the past and the future. It happened in random leaps, from what should have happened (the mission being a success) and what he hoped to happen (being praised for his good work) to what had come to pass (scores of missions accomplished perfectly, acing the tests he'd been put through, his friends in Heaven, and chicken nuggets. Lots of chicken nuggets).

He saw his most important mission to date—cracking the doors that trapped a hundred prisoners in a cold, dark mine and leading them out into warm sunlight.

He saw the first time he'd met the angel who had become one of his closest friends—Shikamaru, a lazy, brilliant ass who tied his hair up in a spiky ponytail and who preferred to concoct a hundred different plans in order to find one that required the least effort to implement.

He saw his plans to report to Kakashi, be greeted with a "Welcome back," and a single-eyed smile, and to sink into the familiarity of white marble and home.

He saw the time Tenten had stuffed ten chicken nuggets into his pencil case at school, because she thought he'd need some food to survive the day.

(He did very well with fish and salad, thank you very much.)

He saw the first ever glimpse he'd had of Heaven, when he'd awoken in bright white light, and the first person he saw was an old man with shaggy white hair and a face that made him think of a toad. ("Looks like we have a good one here," Jiraiya had said. "Pity. I wanted a student to visit the hot springs with me.")

He saw the worst mission he'd ever had the misfortune to take on (Naruto sprinting out of the movie theater, hands clapped over his mouth).

He saw the time the King of Heaven had declared him a proper angel, when he had only been a holy _something_ before. There had been no great ceremony, just a pat on his shoulder and a kiss on his forehead.

He saw the time Kakashi had turned bright red in the dining hall, engrossed in reading his thick, gilded book. Someone had noticed, and Kakashi had startled and turned and shoved the book into Neji's hands. He'd clamped an arm around Neji's shoulders and cheerfully announced that he was sharing the joys of reading with Neji, and flipping the pages so fast that Neji could barely catch a word of it. (But he had suspected, and the archangel had taken the book away before he could begin to decipher any of it.)

He saw his hopes of becoming an archangel someday, like Kakashi and Obito and Itachi. He wondered if his eye would turn red if he did, if he had to follow Jiraiya to his hot springs like Kakashi sometimes indulged. (Kakashi always got someone to guard the gates when he left his post—Neji had thought that doing the archangel that favor would put him into his King's good graces.)

He saw himself becoming better friends with Tenten. He wondered if they'd be good as a team if they had the chance to fight back-to-back. Speaking of Tenten—was she also facing this? Would she suffer this same fate? They were going to perish, weren't they?

Something warm curled around his hand, something safe and almost comforting, so he squeezed it back, vaguely aware of the void that surrounded him.

How did angels die? Did they simply vanish? Were there burial grounds in Heaven? Would Kakashi think to look for him?

Neji didn't know, so he slowed his thinking, and waited.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** This chapter is perhaps better known as "Heaven is full of perverts" LOL_


	12. Tennis Shoes and Tissue Box

_Prompt: "_ Write about something that includes tennis shoes and an empty tissue box." _(Thank you, Zero!)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 12: Tennis Shoes and Tissue Box**

Neji landed hard on his face, cheek smashing against hot, rough rock. The rest of his body followed in an ungainly, painful crash. He screwed his eyes shut, grimaced—angels could feel pain?—and planted his hands on the ground to lift himself up. Hadn't he died?

What met his eyes was the molten magma waterfall at Hell's entrance. It was grand, made of solid ebony rock, towering above him, and thick, glowing lava oozed down its surface. He felt as if he was being broiled alive just by looking at it. Was this where angels went when they died? Hell?

For a moment, all he could do was stare.

Then a piercing, blinding pain shot through his toes.

He swore, jerked his feet away from the searing heat, scrambled up to look at them. Instead of the prim white tennis shoes he'd worn to the McDevil's nugget factory, what was left of it was a pair of crop-toed athletic shoes—the ends had been eaten away by lava, and the tips of his toes were red-hot. They hadn't suffered anything past a first degree burn, but they hurt. And then they were numb.

He pulled his legs hurriedly onto solid rock, looking around for any other immediate threats. But there was only him on the solid basalt of Hell's entrance. Come to think of it, he'd never visited the base of the waterfall. The walkway to Hell was higher up, on a narrow bridge leading to the main slug-guarded gates. What had happened before this? Where was Tenten?

There was a faint wailing at the back of his mind. Through the horror at having dipped his toes in magma, Neji began to listen to it. His ears were ringing, and it took several tries to get them to work properly as he wobbled to his feet.

 _Neji,_ it seemed to say. _Neji!_

He shook his head, staggered towards the slope that tipped sharply up to the stone bridge high, high up. How was he going to get anywhere close to another sentient being? How was he to return to Heaven?

Something tiny moved on the stone bridge. He paused, toes throbbing, and craned his neck to look at the little sticks shaking at the edge of the bridge. Was there a tree there?

"Neji! You're alive!"

There was something in one of the branches suddenly, and that something came falling down towards him, rolling upon itself as it bounced off the steep cliff supporting the bridge. The shape resolved into a tiny rectangular box—a tissue box? He saw its dark, oval hole on one surface. The box itself was empty, however. How did a tissue box land in Hell?

Bits of snow began to fall from the bridge.

No, not snow—lumps of white. The tissue box clattered down; he backed away so it wouldn't hit him, and it bounced off several rocks to a stop some yards away. _Kono-nex_ , read the empty box. It was a shade of blue, the exact one he'd had in his car.

Neji frowned at it, looked up, and the wrinkled balls of snow drifted down around him. Some touched the magma and hissed, fire consuming every edge that made contact. Smoke rose thinly from them.

Then one hit his face. He caught it. It was soggy and damp, and he stared at it in bewilderment (nothing in Hell was _soggy_ and _wet_ ) until he realized that it was a tissue full of _snot_.

 _What?_

He jerked his eyes back up to the top of the bridge, realized that the drifting sticks were, in fact, arms, and someone was waving down at him. "Neji!"

"Tenten?" he shouted.

"I thought you died!" she wailed. She was hardly more than a dark blob at the edge of the bridge. "Luckily I found some of your tissues on me! I'd have suffocated crying over your death!"

He stared. So, he wasn't dead. That was nice.

"How do I get up there?" he asked, cupping his hands around his mouth so the sound would travel further. (Did it follow the laws of physics here? He assumed it would.)

"I don't know!" she cried. "Try climbing up!"

"I can't!" Especially when a third of his shoes were missing.

"You're a genius, right? Figure it out!"

He wanted to retort that he wasn't, but he was the one who got the straight A's in school. Surely he could find a way to return home. The question was, how was he going to do that?

* * *

 _A/N: I'm sorry if any of this doesn't flow right - just came back from like.. 8 hours of shopping/walking around. Husband and I won a gift card and we did some Christmas shopping. Relatives will get nice stuff this year. Yay for them! I just wrote this and am exhausted. And we're going on a road trip tomorrow. Wow._

 _Hope you guys enjoyed!_


	13. Agape

_This was inspired by_ expiration _, and bags of Valentine's Ghiradelli chocolates going for 80 cents that the husband and I found yesterday. ;) Prompt: "Agape" (Thank you Zero!)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 13: Agape**

"And this is for you, Kakashi!" Tenten said brightly, shoving a scarlet box at the Archangel. Next to her, Neji frowned. He wasn't sure it was appropriate for demons to be giving Archangels (especially his superior, no less) heart-shaped boxes bound with ostentatious red ribbons. "I have one for Jiraiya too!"

"Oh?" Kakashi's eyes crinkled. The Archangel was standing by the gates of Heaven, thick gilded book tucked away beneath his arm. He reached over for the box. "That's very nice of you, Tenten!"

"Surely you aren't to accept gifts from... her sort, Lord Kakashi," Neji protested.

Tenten whipped her head around. "You're just jealous that you aren't getting any, Neji."

He gaped at her.

"This is a sign of brotherly love," she continued, rattling an identical box at him. "And Kakashi and Jiraiya are my good friends!"

"How?" He'd never seen her in Heaven, except for the one (or more) times she'd sneaked into his room and left chicken nugget crumbs all over his bed.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "I shared my chicken nuggets with them, Neji. Unlike you, who are a prude, I know how to make friends."

He glared at her.

"Anyway, we should be headed off," Tenten said to Kakashi, waving her remaining box cheerily. "Still gotta deliver the other one!"

Kakashi waved them off and returned to his book (Neji thought he might wanted to have stayed to see what Kakashi looked like under his mask—the chocolates would have been good for that—but Tenten was dragging him away by the elbow, and he needed to follow to make sure she didn't get him into trouble.)

They found the Sage-Angel in one of the gazebos by a gurgling creek. It wasn't apparent why he was loitering on the outskirts of the King's home at first, but as they drew closer, Neji realized that the wrinkled, large-mouthed angel was penning some sort of script on a thick sheath of papers.

"Why, hello there, Tenten, Neji!" Jiraiya said. He waved a quill at them. "Busy day today!"

Tenten shoved the heart-shaped box at him. "Here, Jiraiya! I found chocolates and thought you might like some!"

The Sage-Angel broke into a wide grin. He looked between the demon and her gift. "Ah, Valentine's chocolates! A little late in the year for them, isn't it?"

"I got them at a sale," Tenten sang in delight. "Eighty percent discount. Can you imagine that?"

Jiraiya's eyes grew wide. "Really! That's very impressive!"

How Tenten and Jiraiya were on such casual terms, Neji wanted to know. It wasn't fair that she was on first-name terms with both Kakashi and Jiraiya. She shouldn't even be able to do that. She was a demon from Hell, and Neji and known them both for far longer. He should—

"So, how are you two getting along?" Jiraiya asked. His eyes were narrowed in a sly smile, and Neji had seen enough of that look to be instantly wary. "Got more chocolates for yourself, Tenten?"

"Oh, yes," she enthused, patting the bag slung over her shoulder. "Lots. But I wanted to give you and Kakashi the best ones, of course."

"Do you think your Queen might like these?" Jiraiya jiggled his box, and the chocolates inside rattled. "As a little gift from me, of course."

Tenten's mouth fell open. "I— I never thought of that," she breathed. "I think she'd like it. She liked the chicken nuggets I brought her."

Neji stared. Tenten had been delivering _chicken nuggets_ to the _Queen of Hell_? And she had liked those bits of grease? How long had he been unconscious in the valley of Hell? By the time he'd scaled the steep cliff by Hell's Gate, Tenten had not any trace of the sack of nuggets she'd secreted away at the nugget factory. Was the Queen of Hell consuming stolen goods?

Could Neji expect any less? Probably not.

So he kept silent, and followed when Tenten dragged him back to his room. She shut the door behind them and grinned.

"How?" he said. "Why?"

She shrugged and wandered over to his bed, where she emptied the contents of her bag onto the covers. He panicked, rushed over. What if there were crumbs, or worse, oil stains?

It was a pile of chocolates, he realized. All individually-wrapped in red, each with a white heart on milk chocolate that was visible through a see-through window. Tenten was separating them into two piles.

"Here, you can have these," she said, dropping certain pieces into the pile closer to him. Those she discarded had words like "be mine" and "kiss" stamped across the chocolates.

This was very weird.

"Why those?" he asked. "Does it make a difference which you eat?"

Tenten shrugged, her attention anchored on the pile before her. "I can't eat those. They make me sick."

"Eating words makes you sick?"

She nodded. He blinked and stared, but it didn't seem as though she was pulling his leg. Neji left the pile alone—they could come in useful. Their mission was still in progress, after all.

"Stuff like love and mush. They don't sit well in my stomach." She made a face then. "Maybe they'll make you stronger. I don't know. Angels are all about the love crap, aren't you?"

He shrugged again. He didn't feel particularly charitable, nor loving, nor good.

"Anyway, I'm eating my chocolates." She hopped onto his bed and kicked her feet against the footboard, making ungainly thumping noises with the soles of her shoes.

"You can't do that," Neji said, annoyed. "That's my bed!"

"I've done worse." She popped a chocolate into her mouth, leaving the wrapper on her other side. "Aren't you going to have some too?"

"Go away," he told her. But that had never worked, and he didn't see why it would now. At least chocolates weren't as difficult to clean as chicken nugget stains, right?

* * *

 _A/N: Should I be sad that I write fastest when I write crack? This was done in around 40 minutes. O_O_


	14. Nugget Dispenser

_Inspired by the crack-tacular_ expiration _, and a Lego chicken nugget dispenser. o_O Sorry about the lack of updates - it's been a hectic few weekends ._

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 14: Nugget Dispenser**

"And this," Tenten said, tugging the gaudy purple tablecloth off with a flourish, "is a chicken nugget vending machine!"

Next to her, Neji stood and stared with no small amount of trepidation. The machine, itself, looked fairly harmless. It was bright red on all sides, with a coin slot right at the very top, a product chute at the bottom, and a hand crank at the side.

"Right," he said. "You don't need one, do you?"

"Sure I do!" She beamed up at him, fumbled around in her pocket for a coin. "Let me demonstrate."

"I don't need to see it," he protested. Neji had had enough of chicken nuggets for a _lifetime_. Tenten went ahead with it anyway.

The machine worked like he expected it to. It ate her sacrificial coin, she cranked the handle around twice, and something bumped into the metal chute flap so it clinked. It really wasn't all that much to squawk about.

"Look at it!" Tenten exclaimed. She leaned in close and lifted the gleaming flap reverently, pulled out the one golden nugget waiting behind. "Doesn't it look absolutely delicious?"

Neji wrinkled his nose. There was no aroma coming from the machine at all. "Is it warm?"

Tenten popped the nugget into her mouth, chewed, and spoke around it. "Nope. This model doesn't come with a warming function."

"Then why even have it at all? It's not packaged. You don't know if it's clean." His stomach shriveled in disgust. "And it's a dollar for _one_ nugget?"

"Well, I got the machine for free," she told him, as if that really meant anything.

Neji's brow furrowed. "Can't you just get a box at McDevil's?"

She grinned slyly. "This, I can have at my place, at my convenience! Do you want one?"

He watched in utter shock as she pulled another dollar out of her pocket.

"No?" Tenten waved the coin at him, lips spread in a wide smile. "My treat."

"I'll pass on it," he told her. Nothing could be worse than this.

* * *

As it turned out, things could get worse. Tenten brought the nugget dispenser up with her to Heaven, where she had still been lurking around without any permission at all. Kakashi greeted her like an old friend at the gate (he never treated Neji with such familiarity), and Jiraiya invited her to sit with him while he composed his terrible pieces of erotic fiction.

"Deliver one to Queen Tsunade on my behalf," Jiraiya said. He pressed a stack of cash into Tenten's hand. Neji watched on in horror.

Tenten flipped through the notes. "Sure thing. The change?"

"Keep it. Delivery charges." Jiraiya winked _(winked!)_ at her, and Tenten beamed.

"I'll get her some booze too," she told him. "She'll be really pleased."

"All the better," the Sage-Angel agreed. "Send my best regards."

Neji followed Tenten back to mortal Earth, where she bought the Deluxe Nugget Dispenser and a bulk bag of nuggets. And the biggest bottle of sake she could find. This, she hoisted onto him. "Hold that for me."

"Why?"

"Because I don't have enough hands to carry all of it!"

"This isn't even our mission!"

She smiled. "No, but buttering the Queen up will make her less mad if we happen to fail."

"We aren't going to fail."

Tenten shrugged. "I didn't think so either, but I'm not one to take chances."

Neji couldn't argue with that.

* * *

Tsunade received the Nugget Dispenser with great amusement. She would get drunk on the sake later, as Neji was to learn, and feed the machine alcohol instead of coins. The demons of Hell would attempt to buy chicken nuggets from the Queen's special machine, and each would walk away with a spongy, booze-soaked piece of processed meat.

For now, Neji stood by Tenten while Tsunade looked upon her gift with great delight.

"The Sage-Angel, you say?" she mused, stroking the bottle of sake with her fingertips. "Send him my thanks. For the chocolate, too. I shall be delighted to grant him an audience someday."

Why Tenten was so excited to hear this, Neji would never know. He wasn't sure he really wanted to, either.


	15. No Competition Here

_Special thanks to Yahboobeh for the dipping sauces idea! A special guest in this one._

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 15: No Competition Here**

They were somehow standing before the long, white counters of McDevil's. Again. The queue inched along; Tenten took a jaunty step forward. Neji shuffled. "I don't get why you even spent money on that dispenser," he grumbled.

He was growing so used to the odors of grease and stale food in here that it was starting to smell normal. _Normal._ Neji wasn't sure if he was more comforted by the fact that his nose had not stopped working, or that he'd wasted enough time in McDevil's for that to happen. Either way, he was horrified.

"It was _fun_. You have no sense of fun, Neji." Tenten folded her arms, studying the backlit menus close to the ceiling. "So what if it broke? I had fun. The Queen had fun. Hers is still working, you know."

He would have asked why she didn't think it unfair that Queen Tsunade's nugget dispenser still worked, but talking about more nuggets would just make him sick to the stomach.

The guy at the register was new. Neji blinked. He hadn't seen the blond in this outlet of McDevil's, and they'd been in here enough times to recognize every single one of the staff. Which was another disconcerting thought.

"Hello!" the guy said, with an easy smile and dancing blue eyes. He didn't have a name tag. He was willowy, pretty, easily a head taller than Neji. "What can I get for you today?"

"You're new," Tenten exclaimed. "Hello! I haven't seen you in here before!"

"Nope. Yesterday was my first day. And you're my special hundredth customer." He winked at Tenten, and Neji frowned. Surely an employee of this place wasn't supposed to be _winking_ at her.

"That's awesome," she answered with a wide grin, bouncing on her heels. Apparently the cashier's good cheer was infectious. Where demons were concerned, that is. "Do I get a special prize?"

"Yes! I'll give you as many sauce packets as you want!" the blond said. He slid a drawer out from behind the counter, waved at the colorful foil-topped plastic containers in there. "So, what will you have today?"

"Two boxes of nuggets!" Tenten was already pulling rumpled notes out of her back pocket, though she made sure to straighten them out before handing them to the guy. She didn't usually do that. The demon liked handing them to cashiers in rumpled balls and watching them untangle the sometimes-soggy notes with furrowed brows. Did she _like_ this guy? "That's all for today, pretty boy."

The cashier took her money with an even prettier smile full of perfect white teeth.

"Are you _flirting_?" he muttered incredulously at the demon.

Tenten turned to him and batted her eyelashes. "My kind don't flirt, Neji. We move in for the kill."

"What?" He blinked and spluttered at her.

"Anything for you, sir?" The cashier turned to Neji, whistling lowly. "Nice hair, by the way. Do you use conditioner?"

He stared at the cashier. No one had asked him about his hair before. "Yes."

"Neji uses this very special brand called Angel's Wings," Tenten piped up helpfully. "It's in this little translucent bottle, and the conditioner itself is blue! I think it works wonders."

Neji gaped at her. "How did you even know that?"

"Been in your bathroom. You can't expect me to visit and not poke around." Tenten's smile was very, very innocent.

"I should check that brand out. So, nothing for you today?" The blond was already tapping on the screen of his register, and he'd turned away before Neji could answer. Neji watched as he grabbed two flimsy paper boxes from the heating rack behind him, setting them down on a plastic tray. "The sauces from before—which would you like?"

"I didn't know there were so many!" Tenten exclaimed, when the cashier opened the drawer again. There were oranges and greens and blues, and a great variety of other colors besides. "Did these just come in?"

"No," the blond answered in surprise. "I've been told that these are the secret sauces you get only if you ask for them."

The look on Tenten's face was priceless. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was gaping open. Neji felt a little bit annoyed; he'd never been able to surprise her to that extent. "I want three of everything," she told the guy.

"Sure thing." He winked again at her, and began doling out handfuls of those sauce packets. They ended up as a pile larger than her two boxes of chicken nuggets.

"Thank you for the sauces," Tenten chirped. She lifted the tray with a huge grin, and a couple of packets slid down the pile. "You're the best!"

The blond just waved at her, fond grin on his face. He caught Neji still staring suspiciously at him and smiled again. "She's really cute, isn't she?"

"She's not cute," he snapped, a flush creeping up his neck. If the cashier was interested in Tenten, then so be it.

"Relax. I'm not after her or anything. You should really try harder if you like her, you know." The guy grabbed a folded towel and began wiping down the counter.

Neji noticed then that there hadn't been anyone in line after them. "I don't like her," he protested quietly.

"If you say so." The cashier shrugged. Blue eyes slid over to where Tenten had taken a seat by the window, eagerly tearing her sauce packets open. "I have my own. No competition here."

He didn't know what to say to that, so he left to join Tenten in her booth.

"Did you tell him where to get the Angel's Wings conditioner?" she asked around a mouthful of nugget, red sauce smeared on the corner of her lips.

"You aren't supposed to poke around in my bathroom!" He frowned. "Or even mention the things I use!"

"I'm a demon." She winked. "Rules don't apply to me."

"You say that like there aren't people listening," he hissed, looking around them. The fast food place was crowded, and no one was looking their way. Tenten grinned gloatingly at him.

"Do you want to try some of these sauces? They're yummy!" She nudged an open container towards him. It was mostly full of some yellow-brown sauce. "That's curry. Not spicy, but I like it."

He couldn't fathom eating chicken nuggets, not after that factory run. Just the thought of putting those fried lumps of _stuff_ in his mouth made his stomach turn. But the sauce looked interesting. He wondered if it would go well with his salad. Curious, Neji poked a cautious finger into the cold, gravy-like sauce, and tasted it.

It was flavorful, surprisingly decent for how awfully greasy the nuggets were.

"It's really not bad, isn't it?" Tenten said, watching him smugly. "Now try all of these!"

There were flavors like honey barbecue and garden ranch and sweet and spicy, and exotic ones like teriyaki and tzatziki and Curry of Life. The last one scorched his tongue the moment he tasted it. Neji's eyes watered. "Ugh."

Tenten took the Curry of Life sauce back, dunking half her nugget into it—because that was how far in it could go. Neji winced.

"That is inedible," he said.

"Are you kidding? This is really good with the tzatziki!" She turned the nugget around, and dipped its unblemished half into creamy green sauce. Neji watched on in horror as she popped the entire thing into her mouth and chewed. "I should bring some back to the Queen," she added. "Would go well with all her booze."

Neji couldn't imagine how that would turn out (it usually ended up worse than in his imagination, anyway), so he didn't try.

He did have the mental image of Hell's lavafalls overflowing with scorching red curry, however. It wasn't pleasant.


	16. Animals

_Surprise early update! Woke up wanting to write more of cutie cashier, so. ;)_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 16: Animals**

They were back at McDevil's. Neji couldn't believe it. He and Tenten usually only visited twice a week, because Tenten thought it boring to bring him into the fast food place every single time, but this time, they'd scarcely been gone a day before they were back. And it had been a very long day.

"I don't have to be here, do I?" he muttered at her as they stood in line once more. "I have nothing to do with this."

"On the contrary, Neji," she said with an enigmatic smile, "you do. You'll help me transport _things_ back down to Hell."

He goggled at her in disbelief. "But—"

"The Queen loves the sauces. She especially likes the Curry of Life one. I can't say I was surprised. Can you? She said it goes with her booze really well." Tenten beamed. "For all my hard work, I think she's going to reward me!"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathed out on a count of ten. The Queen of Hell would be breathing fire if she ate any more of that sauce. "And how does this help with our mission?"

Tenten's look was very, very sly. "How else do you think it'll help? I'll be getting us aid. From everyone. Jiraiya, Kakashi, and the cute cashier here."

"How?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Neji, this is no ordinary mission." Tenten waggled her finger at him. "They aren't just going to get together like that. We need extraordinary assistance."

"You make it sound like some sort of fertility treatment."

"Which it is!" She cackled. "I'm just getting all my cards in order."

He looked dubiously at her, but she didn't drop any further hints. Tenten whistled while they shuffled forward in the relatively-short queue. The blond cashier was there again, bustling about with his orders. His movements were oddly fluid, like he'd taken up dancing classes of some sort or something, and Neji couldn't help staring. Tenten elbowed him in the ribs.

"He's pretty, isn't he?" she whispered.

Neji frowned at her. "That's not for me to decide."

"But he is. Look at that smile. Look at his eyes. They're so blue."

He looked. It had to be illegal for a guy to be that pretty. The cashier had high cheekbones and dancing eyes, and his hair was what women in commercials described as "flyaway". It was gold and wispy and it looked soft. Kind of like Neji's hair, but his own hair would never just seem to float like that, even if he cut it short.

Neji was surprised to find that he was a little bit jealous. And captivated. The cashier had so much _charm_.

When they finally got to the counter, the blond winked at both of them. "Hey! Haven't seen you in a while." To Neji, he added, "you're cute."

He stared at the cashier, stunned and embarrassed.

Angels weren't attracted to anyone. He didn't like Tenten, and he didn't like this cashier, either. For Heaven's sake, the cashier was taller than him!

"Two boxes of nuggets," Tenten announced. In an undertone, she said, "I brought you something."

"Two boxes of nuggets," the cashier repeated. He tapped on the register screen, and leaned in, looking between Neji and the demon. "Oh?" he whispered back. "What is it?"

Tenten slid her backpack in front of her and unzipped it, fishing out a little bottle of blue conditioner. "Angel's Wings. Remember I told you about it?"

Blue eyes grew wide. "You really didn't have to!" the cashier said, but his entire face had lit up. "I mean, I really appreciate it, but you really—"

"It's a gift. For friends." Tenten winked at him. "I do lots of favors for my friends."

The cashier grinned gratefully at her; his eyes were soft. Neji hadn't thought the guy could look any prettier. Apparently he was wrong. "Thank you. How much is it? I can't accept it right now, I'm still on shift."

"Don't worry about the price," Tenten said. She shoved the bottle back into her bag and zipped it up. "We'll meet you out back later. What time?"

The blond bit his lip, thought briefly. "In an hour. I have a grumpy dog coming to pick me up though, so it has to be quick."

"Sure thing." Tenten drew back and pulled some rumpled notes out of her pocket. Neji watched as she straightened them out once again, before handing them over. Tenten really had to like this guy to do that twice in a row. And to go through the trouble of raiding Heaven's bath supplies for that conditioner. "Here. I want twenty packets of Curry of Life, and three tzatziki sauces."

The cashier set everything on the plastic tray and slid it over, winking again. "See you later."

Neji followed Tenten to one of the window booths. She shoved all but one of the Curry of Life packets at him. He frowned at her, and reluctantly swept the sauce packets into the leather bag he carried with him. "You bribed him for the sauces, didn't you?" he said.

She _smiled_. "The Queen said to do whatever it takes. All I did was do a new friend a favor."

He shook his head exasperatedly. "Your Queen isn't even paying for it."

Tenten shrugged. "Perks of being one of my kind. At least I didn't take one of your bottles."

"You were going to," he accused. "You barged right into my bathroom—"

"To check the brand," she said simply, and smiled again. Tenten dipped a nugget into the curry, then shoved the red-coated side into tzatziki sauce and ate it. Neji grimaced. "Hey, it's not bad like that too!"

She began to pour the curry into the cover of her open nugget box, and emptied the tzatziki sauce packets next to it. As if that wasn't enough, she picked up another nugget, used it to swirl the sauces around so it became a thick, pinkish paste.

Neji forced his eyes away, looked at the counter instead. The cashier was grinning and chatting with another customer. And still looking really pretty.

With growing horror, he realized he thought the cashier prettier than Tenten.

"We should call him Cutie," Tenten said, following his gaze. "I really like him. He's so nice, you know? Makes you want to do things for him."

Neji blinked at her, halfway caught on Tenten publicly declaring her liking for anyone, and halfway stunned by Tenten having a generous side to her at all. "Are you in love with him?" he blurted.

She looked back at him in surprise and laughed. "No. I like him like I like Jiraiya and Kakashi. I like lots of people."

"Oh." It hadn't occurred to him, either, that demons could like people.

Angels liked people, too. Surely that was why Neji kept looking back at the cashier. Why was this even happening to him?

Between arguing with Tenten about the dipping sauces, and being disgusted with her enjoyment of the nuggets, and looking at the cashier, the hour went by quickly. They didn't even get to discuss the mission at all.

He followed the demon out to the back of the fast food place, wrinkling his nose at the concentrated fumes of stale oil. They waited around by an inconspicuous door, hands in their pockets, until the door pushed open and the blond stepped out in his uniform, sans apron. He smiled at them both. "Hello there!"

"Hi!" Tenten grinned at him. She pulled her backpack open and shoved the conditioner at the cashier. "I thought we could call you Cutie. You still don't have a name tag."

"Thank you." The blond smiled back, genuine and delighted. He cradled the conditioner to his chest. This close, he was way taller than either of them. Thinner, too. "Well, I go by many names. What are yours?"

"I'm Tenten, and he's Neji," the demon said. (Neji wondered why Tenten was even making friends with a human.) "What do we call you?"

"What about Big Kitty? Some people call me that." The cashier smiled again. He seemed so very human, like their schoolmates, except Tenten hadn't been buying favors off those guys.

"Big Kitty! Sounds good." Tenten waved her hands around. "Actually, we need some help. Relationship questions."

"Oh?" Blue eyes flickered between them, then toward the street, where cars were rolling by.

"Nah, it's about these two friends of ours. They can't seem to get together." Tenten frowned. "We've tried getting them together but it keeps failing."

Big Kitty pursed his lips. "I won't ask why you want to get them together. But this will take longer than a two-minute discussion."

Tenten's face fell.

"Maybe tomorrow or the day after? If you come by again, I'll make more time to chat." He looked at the street again.

"You do know how to get people together though?" Tenten asked, hopeful once more.

The blond winked. "Been doing that for some time. Different strokes for different folks." And as a black car pulled up by the curb next to them, he said in a lower tone, "this one was especially tough to land." More loudly, "you're early today, Big Doggy!"

Tenten crouched down to look into the car. "Hello!" she grinned and waved. "We're just chatting with Big Kitty here!"

Neji kind of wanted to look, too, since the driver's face was shielded by the roof of the car. He had his pride, though. He remained standing straight.

"Tch. Haven't got all day. Get in, you idiot," the voice in the car rumbled. It sounded like a guy.

"Well, I'll see you sometime!" The blond waved and slipped into the car, and the door shut with a bang. "Thank you for the conditioner!" he said through the open window. "I'll make sure Big Doggy tries it too!"

The tires squealed. Through the back window, Neji saw the blond lean over in his seat. He couldn't tell if Big Kitty was whispering in Big Doggy's ear, or kissing him, or what. It was weird to even think about them in a relationship.

"I didn't think he meant a person," Tenten said next to him. Her shoulders sagged. "I thought a dog was coming to pick him up."

Neji had been expecting a dog, too. He'd read stories about animals come to pick their owners up at scheduled times. This really wasn't his business, though.

"Anyway, we'll be back tomorrow," Tenten mused. "Then we'll finally get a better idea on how to proceed with this mission!"

Neji could only hope.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Exploration on Neji's sexuality inspired by the ever-inspiring _ expiration _. I haven't actually seen this happen in very many nejiten fics at all._

 _If you find the animal duo familiar, do tell, and do stick to their animal names! ;)_


	17. Answers

_I must say that cutie cashier is a ton of motivation by himself. :P_

 _Naruto and its characters do not belong to me._

* * *

 **Demon in My Chariot**

 **Part 17: Answers**

They were in McDevil's for the _third_ day in a row, and Neji was really tired of the smells in that place. Even Tenten's offer of buying him a salad didn't sound appetizing enough. So, they were sitting by a window again, Tenten swirling her curry and tzatziki sauces together into pinkish goop, and Neji with another bag of Curry of Life sachets, wondering why in all Heavens the cashier had winked at him again.

"Should he really wink at people?" he asked, sneaking another glance at the blond. "Isn't that flirting?"

She sighed heavily and popped another nugget into her mouth. "Big Kitty can flirt with whoever he wants to, Neji. He seems to be getting along splendidly with everyone here. And he seems to like you."

"But the other guy," he began, "won't he be worried? Or angry?"

Not that he actually had much idea what human romances were like. Maybe that was why they were failing so badly with their charges.

"I think there're different levels to liking someone," Tenten answered. "Or maybe he's in an open relationship."

"What's that?"

"It means people who are dating each other are allowed to see other people. At least, that's what Jiraiya told me."

He didn't even want to know why Tenten was talking about that with the Sage Angel. It didn't even sound right.

"But as long as both parties are in agreement about the boundaries of their relationship, then it's fine. Your Sage told me, so it must be true." Tenten grinned, and Neji had nothing to say to that. Jiraiya's word was almost as good as those in the scriptures. "I totally see why Big Doggy likes him. He's so pretty!"

"You've mentioned that." And no, he didn't need a reminder, thank you very much.

"I bet you're curious about what Big Doggy looks like," she said slyly, licking the pink sauce off a chicken nugget. "You didn't even say hello yesterday."

"I'm not. I was being polite." (Yes, he wanted to know.)

"Well, Big Doggy is a guy."

"I know that."

"He's really good-looking too."

That, he didn't know. But surely someone Big Kitty was in a relationship with would have to look just as good as he did. "It doesn't concern me."

"He's the dark, angry type," Tenten whispered, glancing around to make sure no one was listening in. (Neji had to strain his ears.) "Black hair, dark eyes. He didn't even smile at me when I said hi."

"Oh." He sounded rude, but Neji could see the other guy's reluctance to get too friendly with someone like Tenten.

"He looked really big, too. Broad shoulders. Wider than you and me standing together."

Neji had to look at her shoulders, and his own, and do the math in his head. This Big Doggy person sounded like a giant. A big, angry giant.

"Although I think that's how Big Kitty puts up with him. He's got enough smiles for both of them."

"I can see that," he said dryly.

"But how do you think two guys," Tenten whispered, leaning in. Neji had to lean in, too. Not that he wanted to. "Do things in bed?"

He jerked away like he'd been burned. "What?" Neji spluttered, heat surging into his face like he'd just downed an entire container of Curry of Life.

"Well, humans aren't sterile, you know. Jiraiya told me humans have lots of sex." Tenten tipped her head curiously to a side. "So if men date men, does that mean they skip it completely? Or they find other ways to do things, or what?"

He didn't know, but he didn't want her to snicker at him for not knowing. "It's none of my business," he snapped uncomfortably.

"You don't know," Tenten crowed, waving a chicken nugget at him. "I'll ask Big Kitty later."

Neji kind of wanted to burrow into a hole beneath the white floor tiles. Tenten was placing some... really strange images in his head. "Why don't we talk about something else," he hissed. "Like the mission."

"Oh." She blinked, as if she'd just remembered it. "Well, we need new input from him anyway. Not that the things we've tried so far have worked."

And they had, they'd tried setting Naruto and Hinata up on dates, and they'd attended group dates, and made multiple movie theater attempts, only to crash back down to Square One.

Tenten glanced back at the counter, caught the cashier's eye. He grinned and wriggled all five fingers at her. She grinned back. "Five minutes," she told Neji when she turned back.

"How did you even know that."

She shrugged. "I just do."

Somehow, it felt like those five minutes dragged by all too slowly. Neji squirmed and thought about the blond winking at him across the table, and his stomach squeezed. It felt like he'd eaten something wrong. He almost wanted to excuse himself and let Tenten handle the entire thing, but that would mean that he skipped out on the mission. Which he absolutely could not do.

Big Kitty disappeared into the back rooms precisely five minutes later, and Neji watched the counter, expecting the blond to come back out that way.

Instead, he startled when someone slid into the booth next to him.

"Yoohoo," Big Kitty said, his voice low and melodious. Blue eyes gleamed at him.

"Hello!" Tenten chirped across the table, waving. She nudged her nuggets at the blond. "Want some?"

The cashier made a face and shook his head, smiling. "Thank you, but no."

He was still wearing his black pants and shoes, Neji realized, but he'd changed into a blue shirt, and he smelled like fresh cheap cologne or something.

"We need help," Tenten said again, earnestly. "It's these two friends of ours. We need to get them together."

Big Kitty nodded, propped his chin on a hand. "Mhmm. What have you done so far?"

"Movies. Group dates. We even tried musicals, but all Naruto does is chat with anyone sitting next to him. Hinata just blushes and stammers. You'd think she'd be a little bit more used to talking to him now, but _no_."

The blond hummed, thoughtful eyes sliding between Neji and Tenten. "How much time have they spent alone together? Not watching a movie or any sort of entertainment?"

Neji exchanged a glance with Tenten. "Not much," he said. "There was one date, but there was a cockroach crawling between some plates, and things went wrong from there."

That was a disaster he'd rather not talk about.

"We tried bringing them to a zoo, too. Didn't really help. Naruto wanted to climb into the monkey enclosure," Tenten added. "And he succeeded! Which was amazing when he swung from those rope nets, but that wasn't our plan."

Big Kitty chuckled quietly. "Have they got lost alone? In a forest or cemetery or somewhere scary?"

Neji exchanged a look with the demon. "No," she said slowly. He could almost see the cogs turning in her head.

"Something scary but safe. Where they can get to know each other in more dire circumstances." Big Kitty winked. "So they'll see each other's strengths and weaknesses. That always helps."

"You say it like you've tried it before," Tenten breathed. Her eyes were bright.

The cashier grinned. "A couple times. If nothing else, it bumps them up by ten to twenty friendship levels."

Neji looked at the demon. That was a lot of progress right there, more than they'd ever accomplished on their own. He could see why the demon had wanted to enlist this guy's help.

"Wow. We'll definitely do that." Tenten bounced in her seat, cheeks flushed. She was really excited about this.

"Are you sure they'll be safe?" Big Kitty asked, smiling at them like he was really amused. "They won't be hurt, will they?"

"We'll be around to make sure they're safe. While hiding." She nodded vigorously. "I think we've got this!"

"That's awesome. Any other questions?" The blond looked from Neji to Tenten. "I tried your conditioner, by the way. It really works!"

He tipped his head towards Tenten, who wiped her oily fingers on her shirt and stroked his hair.

"Wow," she breathed, eyes growing wide. "This is amazing. Neji, touch it too!"

Neji froze in his seat, but Big Kitty angled a (very pretty) smile at him, and it felt like it would be rude to refuse. So he reached up and hesitantly touched cornsilk hair, expecting it to be similar to his own.

It wasn't. Big Kitty's hair was even softer and silkier than his, and it felt like the fur of a baby animal. It wasn't fair.

"I let Big Doggy try some, too. He wasn't happy, but _wow_ , his hair is so much better now," the blond said, straightening when Neji pulled his hand reluctantly away. He flicked his fingers through his hair, looking every bit like a model on a magazine cover or something.

"I have a question!" Tenten cut in. She leaned in to whisper. "Do you and Big Doggy have sex? I mean, how do guys even do stuff like that?"

Neji froze in pure, unadulterated horror. It felt as though he were reporting to Kakashi that his mission were a failure.

Big Kitty glanced between them, and his smile was secretive. "It's anatomically possible," he said slowly. "But the details might be a little icky. Do you really want to know?"

Tenten nodded hard. Neji felt like his joints would creak if he so much as moved a muscle.

"I won't ruin your appetites and all that," the blond said, looking at Tenten's pile of nuggets.

"I'm totally fine with listening. Aren't you, Neji?" Tenten waggled her eyebrows at him.

He nodded. He couldn't let a demon best him.

"If you're sure," the blond replied, still smiling.

What followed was a long, elaborate description of lubrication and penetration that had Tenten's eyes bugging. Neji felt kind of dizzy listening to it all. There were mental images, too, but he didn't want to think about them right now. Tenten was still eating her nuggets.

Something honked outside. Big Kitty snapped his head up, looked through the window, and the black car from yesterday was there again. This time, Neji could see the driver somewhat—he looked stern and rather impatient. But also very handsome.

"Looks like I gotta go," Big Kitty said. He stood and patted Neji lightly on the head. "Don't get in too much trouble, you guys!"

They barely got their goodbyes out when the cashier loped out of McDevil's and into the car, and this time, they really did kiss. Neji felt his stomach squeeze again. (It had to be all the fumes in here.)

"Aww," Tenten crooned. "Aren't they so cute?"

Neji wasn't sure he could agree. He wanted to return to Heaven and wash his head out.


End file.
